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superstitious

In the novel The Seventh Son, the devil is described to a young man named Alvin.  The describer states that the devil looks like "the horns of a bull, claws of a bear, hooves of a goat, and has the roar of a ravening lion."  The young man replies to this saying "An you call us superstitious."  From this conversation between two characters, i wonder if ones self can believe in a religion and at the same time, not believe it is indeed superstitious... 

Within the novel itself, a family called the Millers, see themselves as a superstitious family, The local Reverend "thrower", also see's it this way.  As a reader, in some sense i see the Reverend himself as a superstitous person.  He tries his best to force a religion onto a young man, who is uncapable of understanding the figure "god".  Is this how he should spread such a godly religion? i think not.  Along with that note, he wishes to kill the young man because the thinks he is the devil.  Being a man of god, could he take gods power into his "own" hands to kill one of "gods creations"?

In some sense i belive that the image of god we ourselfs have created is somewhat superstitious, no human on earth has ever seen this "God" but we still believe he is there.  Other cultures have many gods..doesnt it seem unnessesary to have multiple gods that withhold the same powers? could it not be possible that one "god" created us all, and not the the power of multiple "gods"?  For that matter, wouldnt having "A" god be superstitious enough? i believe that this "god" might just be a figure of the human imagination, and at the same time just a figure of history, not actually a person.

Snyder v Phelps

The supreme court has been hearing a case pertaining to the 1st Amendment right the case is Snyder v Phelps.  Snyder a Marine Corp Lance Corporal was killed in Iraq in 2006.  When it came time to have the funeral which is a private and very serious event members of the Westbro Baptist Church protested at the church of his funeral with signs that read "Thank God for Dead Soldiers", "Fag Troops" and many other. 

The court has a very tough decision to make because they can not take away the free speech of somebody even if it is very hurtful and just down right wrong.  They do express sympathy to the family of the fallen troop but it is a tough decision to make.  Who knows when they could come to a just decision.

For the full story here is the link.

Can Barack Obama Truely Convert From One Religion to Another

 Our  country has an history of over reaction. In  the Crucible we learned about how people were accused of being witches and over reacted.  Today , based on political motives people are over reacting and accusing  our President Barack Obama is not even a real Christian. People are saying that President Barack Obama is not a Christian because he is the only president to skip the National Day Of Prayer.  Also,  they say this because when he was at Georgetown University he had them cover up all there Crosses. Although he spent his formative years in Indonesia as a practicing Muslim , President   Obama, took after his father religion as a Muslim  but then changed over to Christianity.  I suspect  that some people choose to  argue that he is not a true Christian  based more on political motaives  then on Christian princapals. Barack Obama argued that he is a Christian by choice and that  he believes that Jesus died on the Cross for our sins and he washed our sins away. To read more about this article of Barack Obama becoming a Christian.

The Movie, or The Book?

In class we read the Crucible and saw the movie. They were both very well done. The movie was almost exactly like the book, with the exception of one added scene. I liked the movie better though because, it really showed how stupid the court was in Salem. If someone was being blamed, they would start acting like they saw something and go into a fit to blame someone else and all of the girls would do the same thing. Like the scene when Mary Warren admitted to lying about seeing the devil. The girls realized that they might get in trouble so the turned on Mary Warren and acted like she was sending her spirit on them. After a while Mary Warren realized that she wasn't going to win so she turned on John Proctor and said that he came to her at night with his spirits. It is so much more fun to see all of this happening then to read about it, because you have all of these girls going loony and people just want it to stop, they don't care who's name is called, just as long as it stops.

"More Weight."

In the fourth act of the Crucible, John and Elizabeth get some time alone to talk. Even though they have been put in jail and treated with no respect what so ever, John and Elizabeth still haven't confessed. But then there is Giles, who was hanged for not confessing.Giles and John Proctor were pretty close friends, so its  a pretty big think when John finds out that he is dead. Giles wouldn't answer yes or no to his indictment, because if he denied the charge they would hang him and auction out his property. So he didn't say anything and they pressed him. But what got to me were his last words, "more wieght,"as if he wanted to die as soon as possible. He died Christian under the law, not like everyone else who would do anything to save their lives. Salem just wasn't a pleasant place to live anymore.

What Will Happen.

We are getting towards the end of the Crucible, and wondering what is going to happen. So far innocent people have been accused and sent to jail for no reason at all. Its kind of funny to think that no one figured out how easy it was for the people blamed of doing witchcraft to lie and blame it on someone they didn't like.How could you kill so many people under these cicumstances? Based on what we read so far, I think most of the people in jail are going to be hanged, because this town is so worried about the devil attacking the town that if they have the smallest piece of eveidence, they will go to drastic measures to make the town pure again. But if you really think about it, all of this blaming eachother of witch craft is what made the town wacko in the first place.